May. 21, 2010

Booting Up A Synthetic Cell

Researchers have inserted an artificially-produced genome into bacterial cells -- and the resulting cells appear to function normally. Writing in the journal Science this week, Craig Venter and colleagues describe their approach for booting up a cell with a custom-made genome. While the genome used in this case was an artificial copy of an ordinary genome, with a few marker genes added and deleted, the researchers believe the same approach could one day be used to construct entirely synthetic organisms. We'll talk about the work, and where it's headed.